Declaration on Herzeg-Bosnia

- a missing declaration -

( pročitaj deklaraciju na hrvatskom jeziku )

 

Motivation

The Declaration on the Homeland War written 20 years ago (NN 102/2000, 17 October 2000) failed in its, as it explicitly states, "stopping the radical politicization of the Homeland War and the worrying polarization of Croatian society".

It failed because it basically failed to explicitly point out that there was probably no battlefield in Croatia without someone contributing there who was either born or originally came from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Declaration on Herzeg-Bosnia which in a concise and understandable way summarizes to every citizen of Croatia the unified position of the Republic of Croatia on the role of Croatia and the croatian Entity in defending the integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is necessary to expand the Declaration on the Homeland War to prevent the aforementioned further polarization of Croatian society.

In addition to preventing irrational divisions in Croatian society, the Declaration about Herzeg-Bosnia is needed to protect Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina whose rights as an equal national community in Bosnia and Herzegovina - from the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement until today - are systematically violated by misusing the existing narratives about Herzeg-Bosnia.

 

Part 1. Introduction

1.1

Bosnia and Herzegovina in the form we know and acknowledge today, originally appears in the decisions of the Berlin Congress in 1878. which integrated it into the former South Slavic area, which means the area inhabited by South Slavic nations within the former multinational Empire. Thus, it was integrated into a much wider, Central European area.

1.2

The basic geopolitical meaning of the former integration and thus the existence of Bosnia and Herzegovina has remained unchanged to this day, and that is to ensure a safe and friendly hinterland of Dalmatia and the part of the Adriatic that the former Empire then ruled. Therefore, to be a factor in the stability of the South Slavic areas, primarily today's Republics that made up the South Slavic area of the former Empire.

1.3

The former Bosnia and Herzegovina was based on national and religious tripartite as well as on the multiethnic determinants of the former Empire in general, which has significantly shaped the later prevalent Republican idea of South Slavic national Unity.

1.4

The centuries-old Empire that ruled in Croatia was primarily a military alliance of which the national communities of Croats and Serbs were an integral part. It is a centuries-old history that has been systematically taken away from the Serbian national community in the past hundred years by radical policies that would rightly be called the serbization of the Serbs in both former South Slavic States.

1.5

After its erasure in 1918, Bosnia and Herzegovina was returned to the geopolitical map of the world by communists led by Josip Broz Tito in 1945, for the same reasons that it was annexed to the former Empire - to be a factor of stability in the former newly created State community of South Slavic nations burdened with interethnic intolerance after the just-ended War.

1.6

Communism,  just  like  fascism, for  simple-minded,  semi-literate  and mostly  rural  South  Slavic  Nations  are  foreign  and  imported ideologies that would never have been accepted if it were not for the reason why the communists brought victory and then ruled in this area for many years.

And this is by no means a communist ideology, but an emphasis on interethnic respect inherited from the era of the former Empire, due to which the communists repression were tolerated by their own people, which they then carried out for many years.

1.7

It is incorrect to claim that today's Republic of Croatia is the result of the so-called Croatian Spring and then the 1974 Constitution.

The 1974 SFRJ Constitution, on the basis of which the Republic of Croatia defended its sovereignty in the Homeland War, is the end result of the continuous action and intra-fractional struggles of Croatian communists led by Josip Broz Tito between the two great World Wars, when, among other things, in Dresden 1928 at the 4th Congress of the KPJ they were the first to react to the assassination of Croatian representatives in the Belgrade Assembly outlining guidelines for the development of a future community of equal south slavic Nations.

So, it was long before Bleiburg and Goli Otok, which were supposed to be - by no means the beginning, as many still call it today - but the end of a mindless spiral of violence in this area that began in 1914 with the assassination in Sarajevo, no less then previous so-called Majski prevrat of 1903 and then continued between and during the two great World Wars.

It remains questionable whether Goli Otok was really a symbol of the break with Stalin or whether it was just a statistically calculated confrontation of communists with (jugo or whoever-) unitarians among them who still exists in large numbers in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

 

Part 2. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina

2.1

25 years after the signing of the Peace agreement and the end of the war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia is obliged to explain to its own citizens, as well as to the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, THE THREAT at which it was exposed and the manner in which the war was conducted thus enabling the development of a democratic society and democratic processes which are largely prevented by the divisions left behind by that war conflict.

The war in Croatia and the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was a conquest venture of the former leadership of the Republic of Serbia, during which Dalmatia and the access of the Republic of Serbia to the sea were to be the main and only meaningful goal of that conquest.

2.2

The threat of conquering Dalmatia consisted of indisputable intentions to conquer Dubrovnik, the Neretva Valley, Šibenik and Zadar, while the people of Split were to be charmed by Yugoslav-Nostalgia and the Croats of the dalmatian Hinterland, who are proverbially most willing to die for the croatian Homeland, previously lure into the trap of Vukovar and than with the massacre and destruction that was carried out there to provoke general defeatism and prevent the formation of the Croatian army at its very beginning.

2.3

Franjo Tudjman's informally emphasized readiness to change the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina in his "historical borders" is most often highlighted as the beginning of the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the beginning of the creation of Herzeg-Bosnia. However, with a 25-year gap, it can be argued with considerable certainty that it was only a matter of gaining the time needed to build the Croatian army.

Slobodan Milošević, who did not need bipartite negotiations with Franjo Tudjman at all, certainly knew that. However, as they were run in parallel with Alija Izetbegović, it is clear that the only motive was to provoke a quarrel between Croats and Bosniak. The conflict between Croats and Bosniak was therefore unavoidable.

By accepting bipartite negotiations on the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Franjo Tudjman has managed to make public a much more important narrative about the Agreed War which, as it turned out, was a crucial trump card in later actions of the Croatian Army for the success of which the demoralization of enemy forces with the narrative of the agreed war was of great importance.

The agreed war was the biggest counterintelligence battle of the Homeland War in which Croatian wartime President Franjo Tudjman almost by himself has defeated a huge counterintelligence enemy apparatus.

It is a battle becouse of which Franjo Tudjman turned his own political party and his own political orientation, originally left, into a Christian Democrat, ashamed of his associates and a large part of the academic community who left him alone in this most important battle of the Homeland War.

2.4

By narrating the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Franjo Tudjman indirectly spared the Bosniak-Muslim community from being directly involved in the conflict between Serbs and Croats, in which unarmed Bosniaks were and could only be Hostages of the Serb side in that conflict.

An example is the crime in Srebrenica, which is impossible to separate from the context of occupying key positions of Croatian forces on the Dinara Mountain which led to the later establishment of peace which confirmed the sovereignty of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It is difficult to find any rational reason for the crimes in Srebrenica even after more than 25 years - Did the former Serbian military leadership wanted to redistribute its own army on the Bosnian-Herzegovinian battlefield or - Was it just a coward act to put pressure on the international community to stop progression of Croatian forces in the liberation of Knin and other occupied areas of the Republic of Croatia? - these are just some of the issues of that irrational act that will remain open for a long time.

2.5

By not insisting at the closing of the Posavina corridor Franjo Tudjman, with the already mentioned narrative of agreed war has significantly mitigated the intensity of conflict between Serbs and Croats as spared many lives and it just says what him, as a Croatian war president and strategist adorned - and it's preservation of human lives.

Franjo Tudjman could of course insist at the intersection of the Posavina corridor, but in that case the breakthrough of this vital corridor on the Serbian side would be sought through Muslim-majority territories, which would lead to even greater suffering.

2.6

It is incorrect to claim that the Homeland War ended with the military-police operation Storm. Incorrect primarily out of reverence for the many innocent serbian civilian casualties that followed after.

The war in the Republic of Croatia ended on the same day when the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended and that is on October 18, 1995. when the last victim of the war was killed at the end of military operation called "South Wind" (according to available data from Croatian forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina).

Furthermore, in order to establish future interethnic relations in the war-torn areas, the Croatian and Serbian communities should be able to find power to agree, without any cynicism, that the expulsion of the Serb population in the final operations of the Homeland War was a positive step forward in breaking the spiral of violence mentioned in point 1.7. Many lives have been preserved and we schould all let that these lives should be a pledge of a new life and not of a new conflicts in desolate areas, both in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It should not be forgotten that Franjo Tudjman, as an active participant in the National Liberation War, had vivid memories of the scale of physical liquidations that followed the end of the Great War in 1945. And this was avoided in the Homeland War primarily thanks to his leadership.

2.7

Important task of this declaration is to point out that Croatian wartime President Franjo Tudjman, respecting one of his goals named democratization of Croatian society, did not reconcile but has united the Croatian people with rational goals in defense of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He has united Croatian people in the defense against the conquering pretensions of radical Serbian policies, which by their actions have been causing enormous damage to the Serbian and all other national communities in the region for more than a hundred years.

Contrary to many years of erroneous narrative of "Reconciliation", for Franjo Tudjman as war President of Croatia can be and should be said that - in the imposed war in the defense of the Republic of Croatia - he united, not necessarily reconciled Croatia. Understanding the difference between these two concepts is of great importance for the further development of democracy in Croatian society.

2.8

Just as it is important for the development of democracy in Croatian society to distinguish between the concepts of "unification" and "reconciliation", so it is important to distinguish the role of the war president and chief-commander of the Croatian army from the role of the first Croatian president.

The emphasis on Franjo Tudjman as the first Croatian president reinforce debates on the issues such as Croatian state-building continuity and many other transition problems in the transition from a one-party to a multi-party society. And these are all legitimate and necessary topics for the democratic development of the Republic of Croatia.

However, for many politician and activist in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Herzeg-Bosnia represents only a platform for realization of personal ambitions through the confrontation with the late war president and chief-commander of the Croatian army and that last for more than 25 years causing enormous diplomatic damage to the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as to the further development of friendly relations between these two Republic.

 

Part 3. Concluding designation

3.1

From the above as well as from the currently existing narrative that radically divides Croatian society, it can be stated that there are two diametrically different views on the Croatian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as two essentially completely different Herzeg -Bosnia.

The one Herzeg-Bosnia of war president and chief-comander of Croatian army Franjo Tudjman, which is a fundamental security issue of the Republic of Croatia and which has preserved the integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the one of Mate Boban, about which are also spread completely wrong narratives as a criminal Enterprise.

Without intention to deny any of the crimes of the Croat-Bosniak conflict, the Enterprise of Mate Boban is no different in its essence from - for example - the Istrian enterprise of Ivan Jakovčić and the Enterprises of many other local leaders from all national communities who in the midst of the war, when Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were most vulnerable, looked solely in their own interest and created their own small, local counties.

Claiming that Herzeg-Bosnia is a criminal Enterprise is the same as claiming that Istria is a criminal Enterprise. Which, of course, cannot be acceptable and as such is a great obstacle for building functional structure of the sovereign Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

3.2

The war between Bosniaks and Croats in the conquest of the former leadership of the Republic of Serbia is a secondary and shameful war, fueled by counterintelligence activities of the conquering forces of the Republic of Serbia in which these two Bosnian national communities left behind the impression as they were at war over the little remaining living space that the Republic of Serbia could not treat.

An embarrassing war for both the Croat and the Bosniak national community. This is the last unfinished conflict in the territories of the sovereign Republic of Croatia and the sovereign Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and this declaration is only a modest contribution to the great effort that still needs to be invested in order to end this conflict.

3.3

From the point of view of Croatia, the Croat Entity versus the Serb Entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina is primarily a security issue and a factor of stability of the sovereign Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The support that the establishment of the croatian Entity is currently receiving from the leadership of the Serb Entity is just a bad attempt to establish the necessary and friendly coexistence of the Croatian and Serbian communities.

A bad attempt because his intention is to spread the lie that the last war was fought for the protection of the Serbian community and not that it was a war of conquest for Dalmatia and to continue to delay the reconciliation of Croats and Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, thus preparing for some new war conflicts conducted on the same principles and on the same war goals that have lasted for more than a century.

Any institutional presence of the Republic of Serbia on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina that is enabled through the institutions of the serbian Entity represents a potential danger, primarily for the Serbian national community, both in Bosnia and in Croatia, to be drawn into new wars with its neighbors for the interests of radical policies that will always be present in Serbian society and which in the past more then a hundred years, have not brought anything good to the Serbian people.

3.4

Entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina that are nationally determined do not necessarily represent a division, but on the contrary, they can be the basis for non-interference of external influences in the existence of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a sovereign Republic.

The right to national identity is one of the fundamental rights of every individual today. In multi-ethnic Europe, states have agreed to protect such rights through bilateral agreements, mostly based on reciprocity. Would it be better to take care of, for example, Croats in Banja Luka or Sarajevo, from Mostar, or would it be better from Zagreb?

Are there mechanisms in Bosnia and Herzegovina today and is there even a desire, to enable all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina to take care of their national identity in the entire territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina? And can this be achieved through nationally determined entities, within the sovereign Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina? The revision of the existing narratives about Herzeg-Bosnia represents only a small, but one of the most important steps on that path (or any other path) towards the functional organization of the sovereign Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

 
Written by  Petar Bačić in Pula, 24 january 2021.